America’s 10 Best Cities To Live In And How They Stack Up For PHP Developers
I love Nashville, TN. Well, ok, I really like it. It’s a great town but I’m getting a bit restless. The problem I face is that I never know what the environment for programmers will be in a given city before moving there. So when Terry Chay briefly mentioned indeed.com’s salary search tool, it sparked my interest. If I, a PHP programmer, wanted to move to another city in the US, how would I fare salary wise? Since I don’t want to list every city in the US, I’ve selected CNN/Money’s Best Places to Live in America as my list of cities to compare.
I’ve compiled all of this into a nice 1990′s looking HTML table, complete with border=1, for your viewing pleasure.
Now I don’t pretend that there is anything scientific or even serious about this information. Please don’t base your job hunting efforts on the fact that “Cal said I could make X in that city.” At best, this should be used as a guide and at worst, it’s just entertainment.
| Rank | City, State | Average PHP Salary | Cost of Living Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fort Collins, CO | $42,000 | 99 |
| 2 | Naperville, IL | $64,000 | 115.2 * |
| 3 | Sugar Land, TX | $61,000 | 87.2 * |
| 4 | Columbia/Ellicott City, MD | $71,000 | 110.3 * |
| 5 | Cary, NC | $59,000 | 97.2 * |
| 6 | Overland Park, KS | $50,000 | 80.5 * |
| 7 | Scottsdale, AZ | $50,000 | 107.8 * |
| 8 | Boise, ID | $36,000 | 89.7 |
| 9 | Fairfield, CT | $66,000 | 163.4 * |
| 10 | Eden Prairie, MN | $53,000 | 113.9 * |
* = Index from closest listed city.
Since a lot of people are hung up these days on how things look, here is the chart I generated from indeed.com. If you click on it, it will take you to the live page and you can add your city into the mix and see how you stack up. I did and let just say Nashville is no Columbia, MD.
So it’s agreed then, we’ll all meet in Columbia, MD. 
We all know that the cost of living varies greatly from region to region. To help adjust for that, I went to bestplaces.net and found the cost of living index for each city or at least the nearest listed city for each city in our list. The COLI uses the US average as 100.
indeed.com also has a forum for php developers where you can join in a discussion on jobs, salary and other fun stuff. Make sure you drop on by and see them.
=C=
Disclaimer: CNN, Money, indeed.com, bestplaces.net and Terry Chay have not authorized or endorsed this article. They hold their own copyrights, trademarks, patents, service marks and coffee cups. I do not pretend to usurp their power in controlling these. I only mention them as way of attribution.
15 comments to “America’s 10 Best Cities To Live In And How They Stack Up For PHP Developers”
September 28th, 2006 at 11:42 am
After applying your figures for cost of living, maybe you should meet in Sugarland.
September 28th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
border = 1, LOL
You make me laugh Mr. Evans.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:34 am
I Agree Above that
September 29th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Guess who is based in Columbia, MD?
http://omniti.com/contact
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:56 pm
i want to live in these cities.
because i know php
what is the process
November 20th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
I took a look at Atlanta, GA with your same metrics and found the average salary at $64,000 with a cost-of-living index of 95.6. So, good salary AND affordable.
I also looked at San Francisco, just for comparison, and the average PHP salary there is $70,000 with a cost-of-living index of 207.7!!!
November 20th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
I tried to apply an algorithm to "even out" the salaries to show what each of these salaries might look like if each city in question had a 100 on the cost-of-living index. The goal of this is to evenly compare the salaries. This is probably not very fair, even, or scientific.
I calculated these with the following formula:
Salary * (1 + (100 – Index / 100)) = Leveled-out Salary
<pre>
1. Fort Collins, CO – $42,420
2. Naperville, IL – $54,272
3. Sugar Land, TX – $68,808
4. Columbia, MD – $63,687
5. Cary, NC – $60,652
6. Overland Park, KS – $59,750
7. Scottsdale, AZ – $46,100
8. Boise, ID – $39,708
9. Fairfield, CT – $24,156
10. Eden Prairie, MN – $45,633
</pre>
I applied the same calculation to Atlanta and San Francisco (as noted in my comment above).
Atlanta: $66,816
San Francisco: ($5,390)
So, from this analysis, clearly the best city to live in as a PHP developer is Sugar Land, TX, with Atlanta, GA following as a close second. The worst place is San Francisco, where you actually pay your employer $5,390 a year to work.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I am currently looking for someone strong in PHP5 OOP and can offer $47k DOE plus benefits. Billings, MT has a COL index of 84.7. It is also close to Yellowstone and Glacier parks, close to outdoors… and common its Montana!
Think you got the tin? email acrossley at dealerspan dot com!
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:11 am
Ramsey, a better formula would look like:
Salary * 100 / Index = Leveled-out Salary
According to yours, developers pay to be able to work in San Franscisco intead of being paid
April 27th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
the cost of living index is not correct.
It’s more like 102, not the listed 87.2. Median salary is 101k and that gives the family 99k of buying power. The listed COL index must have been pulled from Houston.
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:27 am
I moved to Atlanta from Nashville to make more money as a developer with extensive windows development. I have found that it makes more sense to take a pay cut (10k) and scratch my development itch by freelancing. Yes that’s right you can make more money on the side than you do at your day job! What’s cool is that you’re the boss!!! I code in c# and SQL server by day and the LANGUAGE/PLATFORM of my choice on the $ide!
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:38 am
I moved to Atlanta from Nashville to make more money as a developer with extensive windows development. I have found that it makes more sense to take a pay cut (10k) and scratch my development itch by freelancing. Yes that’s right you can make more money on the side than you do at your day job! What’s cool is that you’re the boss!!! I code in c# and SQL server by day and the LANGUAGE/PLATFORM of my choice on the $ide!
November 27th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
IMHO – lol
November 30th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
You can find up-to-date information by state and metro area concerning PHP job salary and demand at http://www.odinjobs.com/PHP_job_market_overview.html
August 30th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
I like the idea of Columbia, MD. The cost of living is a little higher than the national average, but you can more than make up for that with the income you might make. The median household income in Columbia is approx. $90,000 according to http://www.areavibes.com/columbia-md/employment/. Also worth noting is that the average cost of housing is approx $380,000 which isn’t all that much more than the state average.